The Stareoff

I decided to have lunch at a fast food restaurant whose brand has a little red hair girl located on a college campus.

The restaurant has a rope offed like entrance up to a point that is a few feet from the counter. When you are at front of the entrance, there is a good chance,  you will be next to have your order taken.

Usually, the counterperson will say “next please” or” I will take the next customer.” When I hear this as a customer, I know to step up to the counter to give my order.

This particular time, I was the next one and moved up past the rope entrance way. There were two counterpersons, one taking an order and the other looked in my direction and said nothing.

An awkward feeling came over me,  I have had this feeling before.  The female counterperson who was directly in my eyeline,  looked at me.  So, I moved forward towards her, but she continued to look at or through me with a bored look.  Like,  I was about to bother her.

She doesn’t say anything, just looks at me. My eyes dart to side to side. Still not, a “May, I Help You” from this person. It felt like she hated me.  Now, this started to peeve me. 

So, I started looking at her, the way she was looking at me. Then, I started to hear the theme from the Clint Eastwood movie, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

 Here is the theme http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFa1-kciCb4

Next thing, I know we were in a Stareoff

So, we stare at each other for what seemed like minutes and of course it wasn’t. The Stareoff is stressful. Have you ever tried to not blink for a minute. That is hard.

The Stareoff went to the next level, the boxing ring staredown. It felt like being in the center of a boxing ring during the pre-fight of two boxers who are staring at each other as both building up the ultimate hatred, so they can knock the block of the other

.

As our Stareoff continued, I knew I didn’t want to this person to wait on me or to give my precious cash to this person.

Then, a voice broke through our Stareoff, the other counterperson said “the next person, please”. I took the opportunity and headed in her direction, I may have cut in front of someone. She was nice and took my order.  

This wasn’t my first Stareoff.  I was talking with my friend, Mark about the Stareoff. He said that has happen to him before. Secretly, I was saying “yes.” The Stareoff has happened to someone else.

Then, I thought that behavior shouldn’t happen to anyone who freely walks into an eating establishment or any business with cash in their wallet or purse to spend.

As customer, we deserve not to be treated as if we are doing the counterperson a favor by coming in and walking up to the counter.

I believe the counterperson or any employee should be told without the customer they wouldn’t have a job.

A suggestion to any business owner not just the eating establishments is take a good look at how your employees are treating your customers or clients. You can casually observe your employees or invest in secret shoppers who go in the business as a customer. The shopper records how they were treated  that investment could prevent customers feeling uncomfortable, leaving unsatisfied and never coming back.

Every customer/client regardless of their looks, age or ethnicity should be treated the same.

In a perfect business world, every customer would have a certain color, green as in cash.